Just a Queen by Jane Caro Page B

if it is a boy. But in the Queen of Scots’ case, as it was with my late sister Queen Mary Tudor’s strange phantom child, as it would have been had I ever had a child of my own, when the mother is queen in her own right, then her death can create both great difficulty and great opportunity. A queen heading towards the birthing stool is the female equivalent of a king going to war. If a monarch dies, then everything changes.
    Whether Mary Stuart gave birth to a girl or boy was not the most pressing concern for my court or for me. What mattered was that if she and her child survived they would be first and second in line to my throne. If she died and the child lived, he or she would be my most obvious heir, unless I had a child myself one day. The Queen of Scots was not simply gestating a child in her womb, but the future of our two nations.
    In the months that followed the news of Mary’s pregnancy, the scandals around her reckless choice of husband intensified. All Christendom was hungry for stories about Henry Darnley’s drunken rampages, tantrums and demands. He wanted to be called King of Scotland, we were told, and when she refused to give him the title, he cursed and humiliated his pregnant wife publicly.
    Like the Irish, the Scots have always been barbarians with their rough manners and incomprehensible, guttural accents. There is jockeying for power in all courts, but in Scotland they are quicker to take offence and quicker to pull out their swords. As we prepared to go on progress, to Woodstock, near Oxford, where I had once spent so many weary months as a prisoner, my courtiers and I traded stories about the shocking and unbridled behaviour of the men beyond our northern border. I could not help feeling a little sorry for Mary as we laughed at the bumpkins she ruled over. She was French: fine-made, elegant, nobly born. No wonder the gulf between the queen and her subjects seemed to grow week by week, month by month, much as did her belly.
    We were seated at dinner, a few of my intimates and I, when one of Robin’s manservants came into the room and whispered urgently in his master’s ear.
    â€˜By heaven, man! Are you certain of this?’ Robin’s agitation brought the general hubbub to a halt. The only noise that remained came from the musicians playing in the gallery above. I signalled that they should stop. They did so, though one lone trumpeter squeaked tunelessly as he brought his solo to an abrupt conclusion. The discordant note hung upon the air as we all turned to look at the earl.
    â€˜What news, my lord, is so striking that you must bring our revels to an end?’
    I would not have been the only person in that room wondering if the Queen of Scots’ child had died in her womb, maybe taking his mother with him. Ah, think of all the troubles both queens would have been spared if only God had seen fit to do just that.
    â€˜The Queen of Scotland’s husband and a group of peers of her realm have murdered the queen’s Italian music master in front of her very eyes and in the face of her protests!’
    A horrified gasp escaped from many at this declaration, including myself. ‘And the queen, is she safe? And what of the babe she is carrying?’
    By way of answer Robin turned towards his manservant. ‘Both unharmed, Your Majesty, but they say the man died clutching the terrified queen’s skirts and calling out her name, begging her to protect him as the murderers rushed in and stabbed him repeatedly. They say her dress was rent by the men’s knives and that Rizzio’s blood – for that was the Italian’s name – his blood covered her gown.’
    I leapt to my feet, my hand at my mouth in genuine shock. I may not have grieved if Mary had died from the complications of childbearing. After all, I had not laid eyes on the woman and still have not. Such events are the will of God, but this insult to a sovereign – any sovereign